My partner and I (both 23M) have been together for several years. We both graduated college last year, and he started a full time job that has him leaving every morning around 7am and getting home around 6pm. I’m currently halfway through graduate school and working about 25-30 hours a week for my practicum. It isn’t too bad in terms of my workload with school + practicum. However, my partner is always running on empty by the time he gets home. He doesn’t have the energy or the desire to have sex or participate in any kind of sexual intimacy. I am constantly disappointed with every day that passes that we don’t share that moment of connection and closeness for weeks at a time.
I’ve spoken to him about this several times ensuring that he never feels attacked during the conversation. My intention is always to make him aware of my feelings and ask for his help in finding a solution or a compromise. His response is almost always that he’ll do better or try harder or work on enforcing better work-life boundaries for himself. It’s to the point where I am over hearing apologies. He doesn’t need to apologize, I’ve made this clear. He isn’t doing something bad or wrong. At this point, apologizing is nothing more than an unproductive, unnecessary thing to say. I want him to hear that his partner is feeling like the relationship is not being taken care of the way it should be, and I care enough to seek out his help in bringing that beautiful life back to our aging relationship. We are just too young to be this old.
I am now finding myself getting angry with him over stupid things, and it is taking a lot of self-restraint to make sure I do not act on my unwarranted feelings. For example, he had a wet dream the other night and came in his sleep. I woke up as he was cleaning the bed off, and he told me what happened. Suffice it to say that I was immediately overcame with anger and was screaming to myself in my head, “Great, so he’ll get off in his sleep, but he won’t with me when he’s awake. How convenient!”. Obviously, I did not tell him this, and I’m not going to get mad at him for having a wet dream. It’s not like he can control when that happens. But, it made me feel unnecessarily upset regardless. I had to excuse myself from the room and make sure I was relaxed before I spoke to him again. I know that feeling this way is not good, and I don’t want to feel like this. But, I’m at a loss when it comes to navigating this problem any further. It seems like I just get more and more disappointed and frustrated the more our relational needs are pushed to the side.
Does anyone have any advice on how to navigate this? Has anyone had a similar problem to my partner, how did you work through it? If you were in my position, what helped you? I’m really reaching for straws at this point because I don’t want our relationship to suffer. However, it is really begin to affect me to constantly tell my partner how I’m feeling, and nothing changes.
TLDR: My partner has no energy for sexual intimacy because of his work stress. After multiple conversations discussing this over the past 6-8 months, I am still left feeling unheard and the situation remains unresolved. I no longer know what to do to improve the state of my relationship, and it seems like my partner is unlikely to change anytime soon. Please help me bring life back to my relationship.
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